Broke and hoarse, we were finally led into an abominable stonewalled room divided by a row of iron bars. The bars sported rust and something darker. A bored guard seated himself on a stool in the corner beside Gertriss and I, a head-knocker in his pudgy fist.

The door closed behind us. Another opened on the far side of the bars.

Feet shuffled, and chains clanked. In marched the Sprangs, sullen, filthy and wary-eyed.

“You.” The eldest Sprang glared at me and spat. His sons followed behind, the youngest supported by the eldest, who glared but was silent.

They were masses of blood and cuts and bruises. Gilgad’s right eye was swollen shut. His lips were bloody. His hair was matted and dark with blood.

His sons were worse. Polter, the youngest, swayed and murmured, his eyes shut, blood trickling from his nose and mouth.

“Bitch.” Gilgad spoke to Gertriss. She didn’t flinch.

“What you need to do, Gilgad Sprang, is shut up and listen. You can either walk out of here, right now, today, or you can rot here. Call my partner names and I’ll decide for you, and I’ll decide to let you rot.” I nodded toward his youngest son. “Your boy is in bad shape. Another day in here and he’ll be dead, and you know it. So are you going to shut up and listen or are you going to bury a son?”

I could see him clench his jaw. Something, him or the hex, wanted to tell me to go to Hell almost bad enough to lose a child.

I almost felt sorry for him then.

He managed to bite back the word.

“All right. Here’s the deal. This paper gets you and your sons out of jail. It does that because the lady and myself agree to pay your fines and fees. Do you understand that, so far? Just nod.”

He nodded.

“There are conditions. First, that you and yours walk out of jail and keep walking right out the East Gate and hitch a ride with a cargo wagon and go home. And once you get home you never ever come back. Because-and this is important, Mr. Sprang-if any of you are ever picked up in Rannit again, all your fines and fees are tripled and you are brought right back here and I tell you this true, you will never see the sun again, or breathe free air. You’ll die here. I’ll see to that. Do you understand?”

He licked bloody lips. “I understand.”

“Tell me what I just said.”

“You pay us out. We go home. Never come back.”

“Good. Now I’m going to ask you a question, you murderous little git. And you’ll answer it, or I swear I’ll tear this paper up and go have myself a big, hot lunch. Why did you come all this way to go after the young lady and I?”

“She stole from our kinfolk.” His voice took on a low growling quality. “She kilt, and she stole.”

“I see. So you were so upset at the financial loss of your kinfolk that you decided to hike all the way to Rannit and do a bit of murder yourself. Touching. Family means everything to you, doesn’t it?”

“City folk ain’t likely to understand,” he said.

“I do understand kids have no business being outdoors in Rannit after Curfew, Mr. Sprang.”

A ghost of confusion passed over his bloody face.

“My boys ain’t babies,” he said. “They’s grown men.”

“Rainy too?”

“I brung Gerlat and Polter.”

I dared put my face close to the bars.

“Then why the Hell did I pull Rainy off the street yesterday? Why did he spend a whole damned night-a whole night, Mr. Sprang-out with the vampires, after Curfew? Why?”

“You’re lyin’. Rainy ain’t in Rannit. I brung Gerlat and Polter.”

“I am not lying. Rainy is here. And alive, thanks to me and Miss Gertriss and Mama Hog. It’s a miracle he survived one night. He’d not have lived through another. And you tell me you didn’t bring him?”

“I ain’t fool enough to bring a child on a man’s errand.”

Gertriss stepped up beside me. “He’s telling the truth, Boss. About Rainy. He didn’t bring him.”

Mr. Sprang glared at Gertriss, but she neither looked away nor stepped back.

“I don’t need no help from you, you-”

“Remember what I said about insulting my partner.”

He clamped his mouth shut.

“We just saved your son’s life. We’re offering to pay you out and send you home. Seems like you owe me a favor, Mr. Sprang. But you hate me even more for that, don’t you?”

“I’d kill you where you stand, if’n it wasn’t for my boys.”

“Does that make sense to you? Does it?”

“Mama took a hex off Rainy,” said Gertriss. “A hex cast to make him hate Mr. Markhat and I.”

“Same hex is riding you,” I added. “Think about it, Mr. Sprang. That day we met. You and your boys pulled blades on me without even knowing for sure who I was. Have you ever done anything like that before?”

“Your woman. She kilt my kin.”

“She’s nobody’s woman but her own. So you were close to Harald Suthom? You loved him like a son? Bounced him on your knee as a baby?”

“He was kin.”

“What color eyes did he have?”

The eldest Sprang hesitated.

“You don’t even know. You don’t know because it never mattered much to you. And it never mattered much because Harald Suthom was a two-bit, lousy sonofabitch, and you know it. So you think about this, Mr. Sprang. You think long and hard about who might have hexed you and your grown sons here and little Rainy too. Because they almost got Rainy killed.”

“I ain’t believing a word of this.”

I shrugged. “I don’t really care what you believe. I told you the truth. Whether you believe or not is another matter. Now, are you willing to sign these papers and get out of Rannit and stay out of Rannit? Will you take Rainy and go home and leave Gertriss and I alone?”

Polter moaned softly. In the distance, an echoed scream rose and fell and died.

“We’ll go,” he said, at last. “Just let us go our way. And we’ll let you go yours.”

“Gertriss?”

Gertriss stared.

“I don’t think he’s lying, Boss. They’ll go home.”

“Then let’s get this done. And you better listen good, Mr. Sprang. Because if I ever see you in Rannit again, you’ll wish the Watch was there. Because I’ll kill you myself and feed you to the ogres. Understand?”

He didn’t speak. But he did lower his eyes and nod.

I woke up the guard. “Fetch an officer,” I said. “We got some papers to sign.”

He grumbled and rose and went.

The Sprangs slumped against the wall and muttered amongst themselves. None of it sounded threatening.

“Think the Old Ruth is stronger than the hex?”

Gertriss frowned and considered that.

“Maybe,” she said at last. “Depends on who cast it.”

“You know of any witch women back home who might have that kind of skill?”

Gertriss shook her head. “Old Granny Gint could probably turn them all into blue-jays if she wanted to. But she wouldn’t. She’s dead set against any kind of black hex.”

I grunted. “Any kin to Harald Suthom or this lot?”

“None. She’s not responsible, Boss. I’m sure of that.”

“Then we’ve got ourselves a stray wand-waver.”

She didn’t reply. I didn’t blame her.

Freeing the Sprangs took maybe five minutes. Papers were signed by myself and Gertriss and passed between the bars and the Sprangs scrawled their marks. The clerk read the terms of the release aloud in a rapid-fire sing-song that escaped everyone in the room, but we nodded and raised our right hands and spoke the oath that bound us to the terms and set the Sprang clan free.

They didn’t release the Sprangs at once, nor did they allow us to mingle. So while they were led away, still in rusty shackles, Gertriss and I hurried back up toward the street and a cab.

The Sprangs were coming to Mama’s to pick up Rainy, and the Hoogas still had orders to pound them on sight. Since the family Sprang didn’t appear to need another beating, we arrived first, and I kept the Hoogas handy, but asked them to refrain from any violence unless the Sprangs started it.

They didn’t. No one spoke. I’d thrown a couple of coppers into the mix, which allowed the Sprangs to hire a wagon for their trip out of town. Polter was stretched out flat in the back of it, still moaning. His color wasn’t good, and a trickle of blood leaked from his ears. Mama just shrugged as she dribbled her anti-hex potion on him and then looked away.